Share this:

Like this:

Related

Post navigation

5 thoughts on “New Link Added”

Hey great looking blog. I was wondering if you could do a short blog entry on basing your miniatures. I am having a terrible time with basing and I can just not figure out how to make a good realistic sand/gravel base. Hopefully you can give me some tips. Keep up the great work.

Give me a few days, and I’ll get a guide put up on my basing. I have 4 basic “style” of basing I use, depending on what effect I’m looking for, and how much time I want to spend on it.

2 KEY ingredients though for every style are Silfor Buffalo Grass Tufts, which can be purchased at http://www.scenicexpress.com, and a big tube of Burnt Umber paint that you can get at any craft store like Hobby Lobby.

In the meantime, let me know which bases that I’ve done interest you, and maybe I can get a quick guide up for that sooner rather than later.

Thank you! Right now I have the tufts and the grass and basing material, but I was wondering what material you use for gravel and the base part because my sand gravel mix looks terrible. I just need help making an effective ground base cover before putting on grass and tufts.

New french coming soon, though it might be a tad boring…the same infantry over and over again until I finish all the battalions I need heheh. But I’m going to work on another diorama with Highlanders and French Lancers, a display unit with Curassiers, and some artillery. Plus I’m going to do a small Napoleon’s Command diorama that I’m giving to my aunt as a Christmas present. I’ll post pictures of thos as I finish them.

Well, the simplest way I base is the way I did it on my Sturmkompanie infantry. I only use this technique on 15mm bases. I don’t think it would looks right on larger scale for my personal taste, but it might. I haven’t tried.

First I glue the minis onto the base. Then after they’ve dried, I used Burnt Umber paint, the kind you get in big tubes from a craft store, and lay it on thick like glue on the base. Real thick and goopy here, covering the whole base plus the mini’s bases. Then, while still wet, I dip the whole thing into Woodland Scenics Brown Medium Ballast mixed with a little Brown Fine Ballast.

After all of this has dried, I brush on watered down white glue where I want grass, leaving just a few spots dry for the “soil” to show through. Not many dry spots though…a couple small ones on each base. A grass field really doesn’t have that many big patches of bare soil, usually. Then I dip the base into my static grass, tap off the excess, DIP A SECOND TIME, tap off the excess, and then blow on the base with short, hard breaths on each side of the base to get the grass to stand upright.

After this has dried, I apply the Silfor Tufts, The key here, of course, is to use tufts that are close in color to your static grass, unless you want the tufts to be weeds instead of longer grass blades. I use straight white glue on the tuft bottoms. Use as many or few per base as you like. Some of my bases I almost fill, some I only put a couple, depending on the effect I’m looking for.

After everything has dried, I give the grass a very light dry brush of Vallejo Iraqi Sand. You just want to be touching the tips of the blades with this, and you don;t want it heavy at all. Besides giving the grass a “dryer at the tips” look, it helps to add depth the the grass itself.

This is the fastest way I base. It saves alot of steps in painting and drybrushing the “dirt soil” by using the Brown Ballast straight from the bag as is. Of course, you could highlight this, but if you’re going to go through the steps of highlighting the soil, there are better materials to use for that, which is what I do when I want to spend more time on my basing.